For a second week in a row, Prison Break delivers another great episode in tonight’s “The Prisoner’s Dilemma.” After Michael’s (Wentworth Miller) escape failed last week, he and his cellmates are now facing a ticking clock as Yemen is literally moments away from imploding. Thus we get another episode where we have Michael having to come up with a MacGyver-esque escape.
Positives
Team Work Makes the Dream Work
Touching back on a big positive from last week Michael’s cellmates again had a lot of room to shine in this episode. After being captured during their first escape, Michael, Whip (Augustus Pew), and Ja (Rick Yune) were placed in solitary confinement alongside famed terrorist Abu Ramal, who is angry at Michael betraying him during the escape. Sure enough all had to work together to escape their cells as the bombs from ISIS grow closer and the inmates have taken over the prison.
Now the best part of these three working together was the pressure from the outside causing them to unite. We had prison guards leaving their posts as the prison was bound to be overrun. While the prisoners wanted Ramal in order to have a bargaining chip once ISIS busts through the door. Thus leaving Ramal to decide whether or not to trust Michael or the Prisoners who genuinely hate him.
Ramal’s Death
Ramal, who I felt was living on borrowed time on the show, was killed by none other than Whip. After escaping with Michael and the team, Ramal betrayed Michael and planned on killing them all. Thankfully Lincoln caused a distraction allowing Whip to fatally stab Ramal.
Theodore Bagwell the Private Eye
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Adding to what was again a big positive last week. We see the fleshing out of Bagwell’s (Robert Knepper) and Sara’s (Sarah Wayne Callies) unlikely partnership in discovering Poseidon with their first guess being Agent Kellerman (Paul Adelstein). Although T-Bag is very much a “changed” man, his former self is always boiling up on the surface when interrogating Kellerman. Add to the humor he infuses in his scenes, like that 911 call, and you again have a character that you can’t help but love. Hopefully they keep Bagwell as a kind of anti-hero as opposed to a man that always reverts back to his darker roots.
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Agent Kellerman’s Exit?
For those of you who are indeed Prison Break lifers, we all remember Kellerman being “killed” in season 2. We also remember him being killed off camera and remerging in season four. Now in tonight’s episode, as he spoke to T-Bag about the existence of Poseidon, he was shot twice by who else but a hitman. As T-Bag escaped with a wound to his shoulder, Kellerman laid on the floor clearly waiting to be finished off. It was here where I must give the writers room for the show a ton of credit. As Kellerman has the gun pointed directly to him, he pleaded with the hitman telling him of the story of his partner from season one who Kellerman himself killed. Stating “I was killed for a lie…and eventually a lie has to kill a truth,” basically foreshadowing that hitman’s future. But before Kellerman can say another word, we see the hitman pull the trigger presumably killing Kellerman off camera again. I for one still believe he is alive, because if the dead body isn’t seen on-screen that means it’s still breathing.
Poseidon
As we all know at this point, Poseidon seems to be the main antagonist for this new season. Now I could put this into the negative section, but personally I do like mystery in my villains. Even the General, who I felt was dangerous and scary in season two but eventually got watered down in season three and four. While he had that clout of mystery his character worked. Now that same clout is beginning to build with Poseidon which is indeed very interesting. It is clear Poseidon wanted Michael to break out Raml from Ogygia. It’s also clear he had the power to release T-Bag. Why he did that we don’t know. For all I know, the Poseidon villain may wind up being a disaster but so far the mystery has worked.
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Brotherly Reunion
Yes we did get a slight brotherly reunion in episode one when Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) finally saw Michael for the first time in six years. But it was also especially rewarding seeing Michael scream out “Brother!” when he had Lincoln right in front of him at the end of tonight’s episode.
Negatives
Lincoln’s Green Screen Nightmare
Again this is not that big of a deal, and if anything, it’s a very minor quibble that I had with tonight’s great episode. But for whatever reason whenever Lincoln was on the run looking for Michael or looking for the keys to open the cell doors to free Michael, it was so evident he was behind a green screen. It was just too obvious for my taste.
Jacob’s turn to the Dark Side
As I said in episode one, I knew after Jacob (Mark Feuerstein) received a gunshot to the knee from point blank range from none other than a hitman. It was obvious he was going to turn bad. The only reason it’s a negative is because you could see it happening from a mile away.
CONCLUSION
After starting out with two rather poor episodes, Prison Break has evened things out by delivering two back to back phenomenal episodes. I personally have no idea how long this will last, but here’s hoping the tide doesn’t change anytime soon.
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